


Blind Dating for the Terminally Uncool

by a_gay_poster



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blind Date, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Ninder (Tinder for Ninjas), dating app, oh my god they were roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:43:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29690379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_gay_poster/pseuds/a_gay_poster
Summary: Gaara is perfectly content being single. That is, until his roommate, Lee, convinces him to download a dating app. Just how many disastrous blind dates does a guy have to go on before he realizes he’s looking for love in all the wrong places?
Relationships: Gaara/Rock Lee, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 125





	Blind Dating for the Terminally Uncool

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LilacNoctua](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilacNoctua/gifts).



> This was supposed to be for Lilac's birthday back in January, but now it's over a month late, so let's just call it a surprise February/congratulations-on-completing-your-longfic gift! Sorry it took me for-freaking-ever to get this together, but I hope you still enjoy the fluff! It's been super awesome having you in the fandom, and your writing is an amazing joy that I feel honored to be able to read. I hope your birthday was absolutely wonderful, and congratulations on finishing Worthwhile!! You should be so proud.
> 
> (Has everyone read [Worthwhile](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729480)?? Go read Worthwhile for your GaaLee epic adventure/fluffy romance needs! I'll wait.)

“Hey guys, whatcha doin’?” 

Kankuro peeked over the back of the couch, seeming to materialize out of nowhere. 

Lee jumped in alarm, shoulders going up to his ears. 

“Oh, Kankuro! Hello!” 

Gaara slapped his hand over his phone screen, the appearance of his brother making him suddenly aware of just how close he and Lee were sitting on the couch’s threadbare, sagging cushions, how Gaara’s knee had crept across Lee’s thigh when he’d pulled his feet up under himself, how Lee’s arm was behind Gaara’s shoulder so he could reach the screen better. 

Of course, living with someone for years meant the boundaries of personal space became slightly eroded. Even if the relationship was simply one between friends and roommates. 

But Kankuro liked to joke. And those jokes made Lee terribly embarrassed. 

“How did you get into our apartment?” Gaara cocked his head to scowl over his shoulder. 

Kankuro threw his hands up in protest. “You gave me a key!” 

“You _took_ a key,” Gaara corrected him. 

“Giving and taking are really just two sides of the same coin, when you really think about it.” Kankuro shrugged, leaning further over the couch to try to knock Gaara’s hand aside. “Don’t change the subject on me. What’s the big secret?” 

Gaara tried to move the phone out of his brother’s reach, but his arms were much shorter than Kankuro’s gorilla limbs. 

“Is it porn?” Kankuro crowed, grabbing for Gaara’s wrist. “Are you guys just looking at weird porn in the middle of your living room?”

“It’s my apartment, and if I want to look at weird porn—”

“We’re setting up a dating profile for Gaara!” Lee chirped, interrupting them before they could come to blows. He placed a calming hand atop Gaara’s, which was already clenched around the best projectile corner of a nearby throw pillow. 

Kankuro leaned back, staring at him for a moment in quiet befuddlement.

“Why would Gaara need a—” He shook his head to cut himself off. “Y’know what, what two or more consenting adults do in their free time is none of my business.” The declaration was punctuated with a sage nod. “Hey. Do you guys have any beer?”

Gaara ignored the question—and the telltale clanking in the fridge that followed the thud of Kankuro’s loping steps across the kitchen floor—in favor of turning his phone screen back on. 

“It’s only three PM!” Lee raised his voice to call.

Gaara nudged him with his knee. 

“Focus. Help me finish this thing so I can decide if I actually want to go through with mortifying myself.” 

Lee’s dark eyes flicked downwards. “Um.” Long lashes fluttered in a slow blink. “It … looks like you already posted it.” 

The noise Gaara made could hardly even be called a curse. 

“No, no! This is good!” Lee prodded the button that would take them to the app’s gaudy yellow homepage. 

**Ninder!** the header proclaimed, in bold sans-serif white. Already a multitonal circle was spinning in the center of the screen, the text beneath it reading, **Searching for singles in your area …**

“It’s just like ripping off a bandaid! This way you won’t brood over it.”

“I don’t brood.” 

Lee laughed, that bright, melodic sound that always seemed to make Gaara feel warm and slightly painful inside. Like he had caught a little spark off it and the ember was burning his palms. A strange sort of pride in having evoked that reaction from Lee, even if he wasn’t actually _trying_ to be funny. 

“Whatever you say.” The grin lingered at the corners of Lee’s mouth. “Oh, look! Your first match.” 

Gaara frowned down at the screen. The first profile was a tall, muscular man with close-cropped hair and a wolfish, rugged sort of grin. 

He was also forty-five years old.

“Lee,” Gaara said, scrolling down the man’s profile. At least his grammar wasn’t dreadful. “What age range did you put in here?”

“Um.” Lee glanced at the screen, and then his eyes went quite wide. “I’m not certain we got to that point before you accidentally hit ‘post’! So it must have used the default setting.” 

Gaara looked towards the kitchen, where Kankuro had just uncapped a bottle of the beer they only kept in the fridge for his visits and was scratching his stomach as he drank. 

Yes, _accidentally_. 

Kankuro would have hell to pay for this particular stunt, as soon as Gaara could think of a suitably harsh punishment. 

“Which is …?” Gaara prodded. 

Lee plucked the phone from his fingers once more, navigating to the app’s settings. His throat bobbed in a slow swallow. 

“Uh.” 

“Eighteen to _ninety-nine_.” Gaara’s voice rose a dangerous half-octave. “People’s grandparents use this?”

“I’m certain nobody’s grandmother or grandfather uses this app!” Lee squeaked, rapidly scrolling through the settings menu. “And I’m sure it will let you edit the search parameters. See?” He clicked on something and began to type quickly with his thumbs. 

Gaara’s gaze strayed longingly to the red **Delete Profile** button.

* * *

Gaara stared down at his phone screen with dread. Across the room, Kankuro was sprawled across their lone armchair with his mouth open in a snore—as if he didn’t have his own perfectly adequate apartment to nap in before his night shift started—leaving Gaara and Lee wedged together on the couch, the only other comfortable surface in the entire tiny apartment. 

They had only just gotten the app to stop offering up photos of what Kankuro had called ‘ _DILFs_ ’ and Lee had called ‘ _middle-aged gentlemen_ ’. And now Gaara’s stomach was heavy with the prospect that he might not be able to dismiss the next suggestions strictly due to age. 

He couldn’t even remember why he had agreed to this absurd scheme, only that Lee had been very convincing with his wide, begging eyes and soft-lipped pout. 

“I’m just worried that you’re lonely,” Lee had said, his hands balled up in front of his chest and his lip wobbling like he might cry. “I know you think you’re making jokes when you say those terrible things about yourself, but it breaks my heart sometimes. You deserve someone who will cherish you!” 

Gaara had not revealed that he could not recall the last time he’d made a joke intentionally. Nor had he thought to question why it was _he_ who had ended up downloading the dating app when Lee was just as single as he was. 

In any case, a new profile had appeared on his phone’s screen, and Gaara looked down at it with some consideration. Lee’s arm was heavy on his shoulder, his breath loud in Gaara’s ear as they bowed their heads together to look. 

The man in the photograph seemed nice enough: an alternative-looking type, hair either dyed a silvery white or prematurely gray. His smile was a little crooked, a little rakish. Cocky. He had struck a pose in front of the camera, and his shirt was sleeveless, his upper arms leanly muscled. 

At least he didn’t seem old enough to be anyone’s father. 

Gaara tapped on the photo to scroll through his prospect’s gallery. Half of the pictures were of the man in waders, holding increasingly large fish on a line, grinning through his overbite. His tagline: _Men want me, fish fear me._

Gaara grimaced. He had never really been into _outdoorsy_ things. 

He swiped left, ignoring Lee’s frown. 

The next photograph to appear was slightly blurry, as if the man taking it didn’t quite know how to operate a phone camera … or at least hadn’t updated his hardware in some time. Most of his photos were nature shots, the man himself with his back turned to the camera or partly out of frame. As best Gaara could tell, though, he was a classic sort of handsome, quite tall and broad. Strong, obviously, even under the heavy flannel of his shirts. 

“Ooh, he likes animals!” Lee cooed, as Gaara scrolled past a photograph of the man crouched down and tossing bread to a pond full of ducks. 

Gaara’s fingers tapped nervously on the back of the phone case. 

“Animals don’t like _me_ ,” he reminded Lee. 

He swiped left once more.

“Besides, isn’t it a little weird to date another redhead?” 

“You have to give _someone_ a chance,” Lee said, in a lilting tone that wasn’t quite a whine but was rapidly approaching it. 

Before Gaara could muster up the words to say, _Technically, no, I don’t,_ Kankuro sat up from the armchair with a jaw-cracking yawn.

“Whoo-ee! Really needed that,” he groaned, stretching his arms over his head. His foot kicked the empty beer bottle at his side, and it went spinning across the floor with a hollow rattle. One sleep-gummy eye cracked and squinted skeptically at Gaara and Lee’s hunched forms on the couch. “Jeez, you still at it?” 

“Gaara hasn’t yet found someone who meets his standards,” Lee huffed. “Although he also won’t tell me what those happen to be.” 

Gaara scowled. If he knew what he wanted out of a relationship, he would have already gone looking for it, with or without prodding from his meddling roommate. All he could really articulate was that—whoever his match was—the feeling needed to be _right_. Someone who made him feel warm. Comfortable. _Cherished,_ as Lee had so aptly put it. And there wasn’t exactly a toggle on the app for that. 

“Oi, toss me the phone.” 

Without so much as waiting a beat for Gaara to respond, Lee snatched the phone from his unresisting fingers and pitched it across the room underhand. Kankuro caught it easily. 

“How compatible does your sidepiece even need to be?” Kankuro asked, peering over the screen to eye the grouchy lump Gaara had curled up into. His gaze shifted to Lee. “Actually, is this like … a sharing situation, or just Gaara’s own thing?” 

A blush rose to Lee’s cheeks when the heat of Gaara’s glare turned to him, betrayed. 

“Um,” Lee stammered, “I’m not sure what you m—”

“It’s cool that you’re cool with it, either way. Wouldn’t have expected it of ya. You’re both so uptight.” Kankuro shrugged, then began swiping right with an almost mechanical swiftness. “Yes, yes, yes, hmm—yes, yes,” he muttered under his breath. “Oh, he’s hot! Yes, yes, yes, definitely yes, and … aw, fuck!” 

“What … seems to be the matter?” Lee squeaked.

Kankuro dropped the phone back into Gaara’s lap, shooting them both a guilty look. “It said, ‘You’re doing that too much. Try again later.’” 

Gaara raised a single eyebrow in return, but just then, his phone began to buzz. 

He picked it up with two fingers, as if it might burn him. 

**You’ve got a match!** his notifications proudly proclaimed. 

He gulped, looking to Lee in panic. 

“What do I do now?” 

“Send him a message!” Lee gestured encouragingly. 

_Hi._ Gaara hen-pecked cautiously at the keyboard. _How are you?_

He deadened the screen and flipped the phone over on the coffee table, pushing it away from himself in a fit of pique. 

It buzzed again. 

“Go on,” Lee whispered. 

Gaara picked the phone back up, and his eyes grew wide as he watched the screen. The little red message icon climbed from one message … to five … to ten … 

“You’re a hit!” Lee cried, slapping Gaara so hard on the back that his nose almost collided with his knees.

* * *

“Yo!” a man yelled, and Gaara nearly jumped out of his skin. The enthusiastic bark that followed sent Gaara’s shoulders rising to his ears. 

Gaara’s date’s photos had all featured the giant white pyrenees that was now loping across the narrow field towards him. He had hoped the size had been an optical illusion, but as both man and beast approached, those hopes were dashed. The dog was at least as big as a full-grown man. 

He knew it had been a mistake to agree to have his first blind date at a _dog park_ of all places. It had only been Lee’s wheedling and—fittingly—his puppy-dog eyes that had finally convinced him to accept the message request. But after all of those dramatics, Lee hadn’t even been able to serve as his safety buddy for his first blind date. Of course, it was only because he had to work, which was an adequate excuse, but Gaara hadn’t been able to help but feel a little smug over how apologetic Lee had been about falling down on his promise. 

Followed, of course, by crushing guilt when Lee had started _crying_ about being a bad friend. 

“Gaara, right?” His date skidded to a halt in front of him, and it was only quick and awkward footwork that prevented Gaara from being bowled over by the massive hound at his heels. 

“It’s nice to meet you in person, Kiba.” Gaara forced a weak smile. “And …”

“My best buddy, Akamaru!” Kiba patted the dog’s head firmly. It was not, Gaara noticed, wearing a leash or a collar. 

“Akamaru,” Gaara repeated, extending his hand down tentatively as if to pet the creature’s nose, but flinching as though he expected to be bitten. 

“Get ‘im behind the ears!” Kiba enthused. “He loves that shit.”

Before Gaara could even make the attempt, Akamaru licked his hand so thoroughly that it came away wet. 

“Aww, he likes you!” Kiba grinned wolfishly, unlocking the metal gate to the dog park and ushering Gaara inside. 

Gaara nearly smiled in relief. There really was a first time for everything. 

“... But then again, Akamaru likes everybody.” 

Or maybe not. 

“So, not much of a dog guy, huh?” Kiba asked, once Akamaru had torn off across the field with a pack of boisterous, muddy mutts. He sprawled down onto a picnic bench, manspreading so wide that Gaara had to perch primly on its edge. 

“Animals don’t usually like me,” Gaara said stiffly. 

“You just gotta relax!” Kiba scratched his abdomen, looking very relaxed indeed. Up close, he smelled strongly of wet dog. There were dirty pawprints on the knees of his torn jeans. “Animals can tell if you’re tense. Like that guy I saw when we were walkin’ over—”

“Guy?”

“Yeah. He was so cool. Total dad bod, but, like, he was rockin’ purple eyeliner and just had this super punk, don’t-give-a-fuck attitude. Akamaru took a shine to him right away.” Kiba clutched his chest, falling dramatically against the bench’s wooden back. “Man, I think it was love at first sight!” 

Gaara’s mouth hung open for a moment before he composed himself enough to speak. 

“Purple eyeliner?” 

Kiba sat upright, all eagerness. It was a shame; he really was terribly attractive in a sort of rugged way. His cheeks were ruddy with excitement. 

“Yeah, did ya see him? Real big, bulky guy, about yea tall? Looked like he could throw ya over a table and just— _nnggh_!” 

“I think I know who you’re talking about,” Gaara interrupted, before Kiba could expound any further upon what Gaara presumed would be yet-more-salacious sexual fantasies that he had absolutely no desire to hear. Already he was feeling faintly sick. 

“No shittin’?” 

“I’m not shitting,” Gaara confirmed. Though, as he gazed across the expanse of mud and grass, he could see Akamaru certainly _was_. “That was my brother.” 

“Oh.” Kiba looked taken aback. “You sure?” 

Gaara glanced over his shoulder. Through the curlicues of the chain-link fence, over by the duck pond, Kankuro tossed him an encouraging thumbs-up. 

“Yes,” he said, terse. “I’m sure.” 

“Damn.” Kiba whistled lowly. “You guys don’t look anything alike.”

“Thanks,” Gaara replied dully, already reaching for his phone and Lee’s contact picture. His 2 PM hot yoga class should be letting out right about now, and the gym was just up the street from the park. “You should go talk to him. You’re his type.”

“Ya think?” Kiba perked up. If he’d been a dog, his tail would have been wagging. “I mean—” He glanced at Gaara, looking suddenly guilty. “Sorry, I know this was kind of supposed to be our thing—”

“Go.” Gaara brushed him off. Three blinking dots had appeared in Lee’s message window, and suddenly Gaara felt happier than he had all day. Hopefully Lee would be able to come pick him up, and then Gaara could treat them both to a curry. He certainly didn’t relish the idea of having to sit three-to-a-seat on Kankuro’s scooter on the ride home. Or worse yet, having to ride in the sidecar with the ventriloquist dummies. 

“I’ll let ya know how it turns out!” Kiba called over his shoulder, summoning Akamaru with a whistle.

The dog sprinted past Gaara, splattering mud all up the front of his trouser legs.

“Please,” said Gaara through a grimace, “don’t bother.”

* * *

The white face of the art gallery loomed before Gaara like the edifice of a mausoleum. His stomach churned, heavy with anxiety. 

It wasn’t even that Gaara didn’t _want_ a relationship. No, he craved affection more than anything. The sensation of Lee’s occasional, overenthusiastic hugs lingered on his skin for weeks at a time (longer even than the ache they left in his ribs), and even a casual brush of Lee’s fingers through his hair (followed by a murmured, “You had some dust,” and a ducked-head blush) was often enough to leave him distracted for hours by the phantom of his fingertips. 

He even found himself occasionally alone in his room, imitating those rare embraces, as if wrapping his arms around himself and squeezing could ever be even remotely comparable to the real thing. 

So Lee had been right that Gaara was lonely. He did want someone to hold, to kiss, to touch him with intention—more than the brief sensation of the brush of lips in his hair when he dozed off on the living room couch and Lee pulled an afghan up over him, whispering, “Sweet dreams,” so faintly it could almost be a fantasy. Gaara certainly _wanted_. 

He just wasn’t sure that he wanted _this._

A small, cool hand slipped to the small of his back, and he stiffened.

“You must be Gaara,” a smooth voice said, far too close to his ear. 

“And you must be Sai,” Gaara replied through gritted teeth, edging a half-centimeter away from the touch. 

“You’re just as handsome as your pictures,” Sai said, reaching to tug a lock of Gaara’s hair. “The red is natural, then?”

“Ye-es?” Gaara said haltingly, unsure of his footing. Sai wasn’t bad-looking himself, to tell the truth. His hair was dark and impeccably combed, and it shone faintly in the midday sun. His pale skin was smooth and blemishless in a way that made him appear as though he’d walked off the pages of a trashy vampire romance novel. Or as though he was wearing a mannequin-thick layer of foundation. The latter was probably more likely. 

“Perhaps you can prove it to me later.”

“What?”

“Shall we?” Sai gestured grandly the the gallery’s arched entryway, and it was only as Gaara went to follow him that he realized his date was wearing a crop-top. 

“So, you’re an artist?” Gaara asked, as they stood side-by-side in front of a life-sized painting of blobby sunbathers. He hadn’t realized, when he’d agreed to this location for their date, that he’d be face-to-face with so many unclothed breasts and buttocks. 

It was beyond uncomfortable for him, but Sai seemed utterly unaffected, getting close to the various works to inspect their technique as if he’d hardly noticed their subject matter. 

“Just freelance for now,” Sai said agreeably. 

Gaara groped for the small talk he’d practiced the night before with Lee. Light topics of conversation. Work, hobbies, food, and weather were all fair, safe game. No politics, no sex talk, and _definitely_ no family stories, Lee had impressed upon him. No matter how darkly humorous Gaara and his siblings might have found them, Lee had reminded him at length that even Gaara’s best memories were what might be considered ‘unbearably disturbing’ to the normal. 

“What sorts of things do you like to … draw?” 

“Paint,” Sai corrected him. “And nudes, mostly. I’m always looking for new models.” 

He cast a sly look at Gaara out of the corner of his eye. Well, that certainly explained his comfort with the gallery’s offerings. 

“You know, you didn’t have much in the way of personal photos on your profile,” Sai continued. He had a glib, disingenuous sort of smile. “Certainly nothing as … intimate as I’m used to.”

“What.” It didn’t even come out as a question.

“You know …” Sai gestured meaningfully to the front of Gaara’s corduroys. “Dick pics? Or perhaps you were waiting to give me a _private_ demonstration. I’ve never painted a natural ginger before.”

He folded his hands in front of his bare midriff with an air of casualness, his eyes slitted closed and feline with contentment. 

Gaara slipped his phone from his pants pocket and thumbed the screen as discreetly as he could, typing out a clumsy, _S.O.S._ and slamming the _send_ key. 

A half-second later, it began to buzz in a familiar pattern. 

“I’m sorry,” he excused himself, fishing the phone from his pocket and cupping his hand around the screen as if to muffle the noise. “I need to take this.” 

“Oh. People actually _call_ you?” Sai asked with a cock of his head. 

Gaara wasn’t sure whether to interpret that as commentary on his technological literacy or if it was just one of the saddest things he’d ever heard someone casually admit. 

Hell, maybe Sai _would_ have been interested in being regaled with some of Gaara’s childhood tales. 

The phone buzzed yet more insistently in his palm. 

“It might be an emergency—” Gaara looked meaningfully to the **No Cellphones** sign plastered on the wall, fingers twitching with nervous energy. 

Sai waved him on with a flippant gesture. 

“Lee?” In a narrow hallway outside the men’s room, Gaara brought the phone to his ear. 

“Gaara!” Lee gasped breathlessly down the line. “Come quickly, something terrible has happened!” 

“He’s not listening in,” Gaara cut him off. “I walked away before I answered.” 

And thank the heavens for it, because Lee’s imitation of a distress cry was so hammy Gaara could practically smell the lard dripping from the speaker. 

“Oh!” Lee’s tone shifted immediately to one of concern. “Is it going badly? Is he making you uncomfortable?”

“Not … really,” Gaara faltered. “It’s just … “ He huffed a frustrated breath. “... his flirting style is a little, uh, direct.”

“So you _are_ uncomfortable, then,” Lee asserted. “Do you want me to come get you?”

Gaara glanced at the whitewashed metal door to the bathroom hall. Through the slit of wire-laced glass, he could see Sai peering up-close at a nude statue, his smile benign despite the fact his nose was but inches from the brass genitalia. 

“Yes,” he said with a beleaguered sigh. 

“I can talk to him if you’d rather,” Lee said. “Or I can come in and get you. It sounds like he needs a stern talking-to about respecting people’s boundaries!” 

“No,” Gaara said, vividly picturing Lee storming the gallery with a disappointed scowl and his scolding finger extended. His lips twitched against the urge to smile. “I’ll just lie.”

It was only a few minutes later, sinking into the passenger seat of Lee’s ancient-yet-pristine punchbug, that he finally felt himself relax.

* * *

“So,” Gaara said, staring at the scant inches of exposed skin of his date’s face, “you didn’t tell me much about yourself when we were chatting.”

Shino adjusted his dark glasses—rude for indoors, if you asked Gaara, but apparently they were prescription, so he’d been willing to forgive it—and cleared his throat. 

“Dating apps are an insecure channel,” he murmured, more to his jacket than to the air.

Gaara blinked once, then twice. The air of the museum’s butterfly house was tropically warm and wet, and the mist of the humidifiers made his skin feel oddly clammy. He wondered if Shino was sweating under his thick canvas jacket.

“Okay,” he said, in lieu of any better response. “So, what do you do for fun?”

“I’ve developed a cryptocurrency,” Shino said, “so I also have an ant farm.”

It was an odd choice of conjunction. 

“Those two things are related?” 

“In a way.” Shino took a few steps forward until he was beneath a tree, then stood there in utter stillness. Perhaps he actually was overheated in that jacket and was seeking shade. “There’s a camera that tracks the ants and encodes their movements as an element of the hash function. The randomness of their organic behavior makes the encryption unbreakable.”

“Oh.” It was all rather beyond Gaara, who had only in the past few years even decided to graduate beyond his college flip phone. To this day he still used a standalone, analog alarm clock. He didn’t trust his phone’s weak speakers to wake him.

They stood there in awkward silence for far longer than even Gaara, who was usually fond of quiet, found tolerable. He sighed heavily, shifting his weight. At least the scenery was decent enough to look at. Butterflies flitted gently from verdant leaf to lush blossom, their wings a rainbow of color. He’d never been much of a fan of tropical plants, but there were a few he recognized, red-studded firebush and tiered pagoda flowers. 

“That one’s pretty,” he said without much passion, gesturing to a butterfly with iridescent blue wings fluttering past.

“The blue morpho is among the most endangered rainforest species.” Gaara couldn’t tell if Shino was looking at the butterflies or if he was reading off a plaque somewhere. What little of his face could be seen was utterly expressionless, his tone so even it was nearly monotonous. “They spend most of their time in the rainforest’s undergrowth with their wings folded to conceal their unique markings from predators. But when it comes time to look for a mate, they take flight throughout all levels of the rainforest, even up above the canopy.”

“So it’s looking for its mate?” 

“Most of the species here are,” Shino agreed. “This is the best time of year to visit the butterfly house, because the butterflies are the most active. That’s why I picked it for our date.” 

“Oh.” It was almost romantic, in a sort of nerdy way. Gaara wasn’t above being seduced by dorkiness. “What’s that one?” 

A massive butterfly, its wingspan nearly the size of an adult man’s hand, drifted slowly past through the mist. 

“A Queen Alexandra’s birdwing,” Shino replied. “They’re the largest butterflies in the world. The females are larger than the males and highly selective; they give the males a very hard time courting them.”

“Sounds like my sister,” Gaara said, half under his breath. 

He meant it to be a joke, a lighthearted aside, maybe an invitation for non-insect-related conversation, but Shino just hummed and continued on.

“The first specimen had to be collected using a shotgun. But specimen collecting isn’t allowed any longer. Because they’re endangered.” 

It soon became clear that Shino was not reading off any of the few plaques scattered around and was in actuality simply reciting facts off the top of his head. It also didn’t seem to matter how much or how little Gaara responded; Shino simply continued to chatter on like an encyclopedia in that slightly pressured, deadpan murmur of his. 

It wasn’t even that Gaara minded listening to people talk at length about their interests. He recalled the many evenings he’d spent sitting on the couch with Lee, rapt as Lee explained in minute detail how to optimize the progression of a strength-building program or the precise ratios of protein to carbohydrates that were best for each type of workout. Nor was it that the topic was going over his head—he could carry on a conversation with Kankuro about bunraku theater and engage with Lee about the miniscule differences between the disciplines of kung fu with a vocabulary that he only understood because, after years of spending time together, he’d _endeavored_ to understand them. He found a sort of quiet joy in the reflection of their happiness back at him, even if he himself wasn’t intrigued by the same topics they were. 

But looking back at Shino, now in his sixth minute of explaining the pupation cycle of a butterfly with zebra-striped wings, Gaara felt none of that warm satisfaction or contentment that he found sitting side-by-side with Lee, studying videos of training sessions so Lee could use him as a sounding board for correcting the minor imperfections in his form. 

Gaara generally regretted ever having gone to his sister for dating advice, but perhaps this was what Temari had meant when she’d talked about a ‘spark’. 

There was nothing between himself and Shino but cold ash.

“You have a leaf on you.” Gaara raised his hand to brush the brown, wrinkled thing from Shino’s shoulder. It might have been a gesture of flirtation if not for the utter lack of joy in his voice. 

“Don’t touch that,” Shino snapped, jerking back. It was the most emotive he had been since their date started. 

The sudden movement shifted his jacket, and suddenly the leaf was falling … and then flying. A butterfly stretched its wings—not a dead leaf at all, but a perfect mimic—and on its inner wings were the most beautiful blues and yellows, broad swathes of color like they’d been painted there, speckled with eyespots. 

“That’s an orange oakleaf,” Shino said, the turn of his head tracking its progress to a nearby tree trunk where it settled, folded its wings, and became invisible once more. 

“How long was it sitting there?” Gaara asked.

Shino shrugged. It was hardly a movement, only noticeable because of the noise of his jacket shifting. “Nearly since we came in.” 

“I didn’t realize.”

“Sometimes when you get distracted by what’s bright and novel—” Shino gestured to a cluster of Monarchs swarming past, all golden orange and stark black. “—you fail to notice the simple things that have been in front of you all along.”

On the tree trunk, the oakleaf gave a final flutter of wings, hinting at the beauty concealed within. 

Gaara swallowed.

“Excuse me, would you.”

He could not say why he fled then, standing outside the butterfly pavilion with his phone in his hand. The midday sun was bright, and he squinted in it, momentarily envious of Shino’s dark glasses. The dial tone trilled in his ear, and seconds later Lee’s voice rang through:

“Gaara? Is everything all right?” 

“Everything’s fine. I just—” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence. 

“You don’t have to explain,” Lee said quickly. “Do you want to leave?”

“Please,” Gaara said, awash with gratitude. 

“I’m just in the cafe. Do you want to walk over? I’ll get you a tea. Chai, no sugar?”

“Yes.” It felt good to be known. 

“I’ll see you in a few minutes!” 

Gaara couldn’t characterize the relief he felt as he hung up, even as he fumbled through his awkward excuses to Shino’s unresponsive gaze. 

“I’m sorry, I have to go. Good luck with the, uh, Bitcoin.”

“GasterCash,” Shino corrected him. “And good luck with the … What was it you said you did, again?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Oh. Sorry.” And at least Shino had the sense to look chagrined at that, ducking his chin further down into his jacket’s collar.

True to his word, Lee met Gaara outside the museum’s cafe, a large tea in one hand and a suspiciously green drink in the other. 

“It’s a kale and peanut butter smoothie!” he enthused, holding the straw out in Gaara’s direction. “Do you want to try a sip?”

Gaara put up a hand. “Under no circumstances. Do you know what a gaster is?”

“Huh?” Lee handed Gaara his tea so he could check his phone, navigating with an ease that made Gaara only slightly jealous. “Um … it looks like it’s the, uh—” He dropped his voice. “— _backside_ of an ant.”

“That makes sense,” Gaara said, and did not elaborate further.

“You know,” Lee said, after a long, thoughtful slurp of his straw, their feet crunching in sync through the parking lot’s gravel, “I think there should be a way to report on the app if someone was horrible to you on your date.”

“He wasn’t horrible,” Gaara sighed. Lee opened the car door and held it open for him to climb in. “We just … didn’t connect.”

“Oh.” Lee settled down into the driver’s seat and studied Gaara with a small frown. “Well, my papa always says that a strong friendship is the foundation of any partnership. Actually, he first met my stepfather when they were both in elementary school! He told me …”

The drive back home was long, and Gaara nearly drifted to sleep there, listening to the sound of the highway humming under the tires and Lee’s eighth rendition of the familiar story of his father’s middle-aged romance. He let his eyes sink closed, the sunlight through the car window warm on his face, adrift in the sound of Lee’s voice. 

When they arrived home, Lee threw the parking brake, then turned to Gaara and stifled an inhale.

“Oh,” he whispered. “All of that socializing must have worn you out. I’ll let you rest.”

Gaara didn’t think to open his eyes, falling into the familiar routine. He feigned sleep even as Lee lifted him and carried him inside, where Lee settled him into his bed and pulled the covers up under his chin.

* * *

Gaara’s hand was clammy on the bar’s door handle. Just beyond the thick wood, bass boomed and the raised voices of chattering patrons spilled into the cold night air. 

He swallowed past the lump in his throat, glancing desperately down the street. Just a half-block down, the lights of a 24-hour pilates studio shone warmly, its plate glass windows revealing the sweaty bodies stretching and contorting within. Gaara couldn’t quite make out Lee’s shape among the blurry figures behind the heat-fogged windows, but it was comforting to know he was there, a single text away if things were to go sideways.

Gaara would almost rather be exercising than doing what he was about to do.

_Almost._

Taking a steeling breath, he pulled the door wide.

He was struck almost immediately with the fug of hot air, his hair blown back by the music’s volume and his nose wrinkling at the sticky stench of spilled beer. 

“ID?” He was stopped by the bulk of a heavyset man at the host’s stand, arms crossed over his chest. 

Gaara fumbled in his jacket pocket for his wallet until he finally extracted the flimsy little card. 

The man scowled down at the photograph, scrutinizing. 

“You expect me to believe you’re twenty-five?” 

Gaara rolled his eyes, pinching the fat of his cheek. 

“Baby face,” he said drily. 

A flash of bright orange caught his eye.

“I think that’s my date,” he said, taking his ID from the man’s thick fingers. He grabbed the ink pad and stamped his own hand, slipping past while the bouncer was still staring slack-jawed at his audacity, and disappeared into the thronging crowd. 

He picked his way across the floor like it was a live minefield, approaching the bar and the back of the man in the orange shirt. The garment was all Gaara had to go on to identify his date, and yet something about the man’s shaggy blond hair struck him as strangely familiar … 

Gaara’s stomach dropped out. 

He laid a hand on the well-known shoulder.

“Huh?” Naruto spun around with a bewildered squint. His mouth spread into a broad grin the moment he spotted Gaara, eyes wrinkling shut behind the peaks of his cheeks. “Oh, hey, Gaara!”

The worst part was, if this had happened ten years ago, it would have been Gaara’s dream come true. A highschool-aged Gaara would have killed and died for the opportunity to sit beside Naruto in a loud and smoky bar under romantic pretenses. But ten years of friendship had done more than calm that ardor, and now it was hard to regard the man with anything more than brotherly affection. Gaara had been at Naruto’s side through many snot-and-tear-filled breakups, and had threatened Sasuke Uchiha with death more times than he could count. 

The prospect of evoking even a shadow of that devastation in Naruto by turning him down now was harrowing. 

“Didn’t expect to see you here!” Naruto hollered over the music. 

Gaara narrowed his eyes. “You … didn’t?”

“Nah, didn’t really seem like your kinda scene, y’know? Loud, crowds, all that shit … ” Naruto turned his head and craned as if to look over Gaara’s shoulder. “Bushy Brows didn’t come with?” 

“No? He’s … up the street,” Gaara faltered. “Doing pilates.”

“Ohh, gotcha!” Naruto grinned, all sunshine. “Didn’t want to get suckered into working out with the hubby, huh?”

“What?” Gaara was momentarily taken aback. “Did Kankuro tell you to say that?”

“Dude’s pretty intense!” Naruto ignored the question entirely. “How much does he even work out, anyway?” 

“At least twice a day,” Gaara reported faithfully, instinctively, still struggling to catch up. “Sometimes more.”

Though to tell the truth, ‘twice’ was probably understating it. Lee’s workouts tended to stretch far beyond the timeframe of what could reasonably be considered normal, and he had a knack for turning the most mundane of tasks into an opportunity for fitness, from grocery shopping to doing the dishes. More than once, Gaara had had to convince him that no, they really _didn’t_ need the bulk, toddler-sized bags of rice, nor did they have the space for it in their cramped quarters, no matter how excellent a weight training exercise it would have been for Lee to carry it on the walk home. 

“Damn!” Naruto’s eyes were wide, but then his smile slipped into a sly grin. “But hey, guess you’re not complaining.” He made to elbow Gaara in the stomach. 

Gaara took a half-step back to avoid the blow. 

“It … doesn’t interfere with my schedule, if that’s what you mean.” 

“Pssh, not your schedule!” The bartender caught Naruto’s attention, and after the diversion of sliding him the beer he had apparently already ordered, Naruto turned his attention back to Gaara with a waggle of his eyebrows. “I mean in the _bedroom_.” 

Gaara frowned. “Lee really doesn’t think those jokes are—” 

“Listen, I don’t have a ton of time to shoot the shit,” Naruto interrupted, dropping his voice to whisper. “I’m s’posed to be meeting a blind date here.” 

“Yes,” Gaara said shortly, bracing himself. 

“I didn’t look too close at the profile, but I hope he’s smokin’ hot!” 

“About that.” Gaara fiddled with the cuffs of his sleeve—red, just as agreed upon, and suddenly several centimeters too tight. “I … think I’m meant to be your date.”

“Huh?” Naruto’s mouth gaped wide. He had a bit of peanut skin stuck between his teeth from the complimentary bowl. If Temari were here, she would have had something to say about him putting his fingers in a bowl of loose food that hundreds of other strangers might have touched. “Nah, no way, can’t be! The guy I was talking to seemed real smooth.”

“You used a fake name.” Gaara raised his eyebrows—paltry as they were—meaningfully. “And there were no pictures of your face.” 

“Well, duh!” Naruto threw his arms in the air. “I can’t have everyone in town knowing I’m on the creep! Shit, my _grandma’s_ on that app.” 

Gaara pictured his own grandmother, with her severe, wrinkled expression and her hair in a tightly coiled bun, swiping right on pictures of shirtless men while wearing her housecoat, and he suppressed an involuntary shiver. 

He decided not to pursue that line of thought any further.

“How did you not know it was _me?_ ” 

It was something of a relief, to realize that Naruto had expected some stranger to meet him here. That Gaara wasn’t setting him up for disappointment by not being able to follow through on a desired relationship, like two ships passing in the night a decade apart. Gaara certainly hadn’t _tried_ to be duplicitous in any way. His own profile had sported both his real name and several photos, ones which he thought were accurate if less-than-flattering, and which Lee had declared, ‘the height of handsomeness!’ 

“I dunno.” Naruto shrugged. “I mean, I was _completely_ ass-trashed—”

That explained the typos, which had been notably worse than even Naruto’s standard half-illegible texts. 

“—and, like, I never woulda expected _you_ to be on there anyway!” Suddenly, Naruto’s expression crumpled into a spectacular frown. “Wait … what about Lee?” 

It was rare for Naruto to use anyone’s given name, Lee’s especially. He must have been deadly serious, though Gaara couldn’t understand why. 

“What about him?”

“You’re not, like … sneaking around on him, are you?”

“Sneaking around …?” 

“Because you’re my buddy, but he’s my buddy, too, and that ain’t right. If you are, I’ll tell him. You can’t go around hurting people like that—”

Oh. 

Apparently Naruto hadn’t been joking at all. He genuinely believed … 

_Oh._

No wonder there had been so many misunderstandings this evening.

“Naruto.” Gaara held up a hand to halt his ramble. “Lee and I aren’t dating; we’re just friends. I’m single. That’s why I’ve been going on blind dates.” 

“Whaaa—?” Naruto took a disbelieving swig of his beer and slammed it down. “You sure?” 

“How could I not be—” Gaara shook his head to cut off the thought. “ _Yes,_ I’m sure.” 

“Oh.” Naruto grabbed another handful of peanuts and shoved them in his mouth, chewing without quite closing his lips. 

“I wouldn’t have thought you would be on that app, either,” Gaara said, after a moment of watching peanut crumbs drop to the front of Naruto’s shirt. “Weren’t you and Sasuke—”

“Augh!” Naruto groaned, grabbing both sides of his head. More peanut crumbs hit the bar top, wetly. “Don’t mention that bastard’s name around me!” 

Gaara chose not to press the issue. 

After a few moments, Naruto’s anguished grimace abated, and his sunny smile returned. 

“Man,” he said, chuckling. “Well, at least it’ll make for a funny story! Shikamaru will get a kick out of it for sure.” 

“Yes,” Gaara said absently, noticing his pocket buzzing. It was quite possible it had been for some time, and he hadn’t noticed over the thump of the bass. “Very funny indeed.”

There were several check-in texts on the screen, one apiece from Kankuro and Temari, and two from Lee. First, a simple, _I hope everything is going well!_ followed, precisely five minutes later by a, _Please don’t feel the need to reply unless you need assistance! I don’t wish to interrupt your date!_

He tapped out a quick, _I’m fine. It’s just Naruto,_ and hit ‘send’, glancing up to where Naruto had summoned another round of beers. 

He accepted the bottle when Naruto offered it. He hated beer, but at least the cold of the glass was grounding. 

“So,” Naruto said with a beam and a pat of the seat beside him. “Drinks?”

* * *

In the end, the revelation came in a barbeque restaurant. 

Gaara’s date that evening wasn’t even someone he’d met on Ninder; he was one of Temari’s boyfriend’s friends, which meant Gaara was confident enough that the man wasn’t an axe murderer that he hadn’t asked Lee to tag along for safety. 

His name was Chouji, and he’d arrived at Gaara’s doorstep to pick him up with a round-cheeked smile and a bag of chips to share on the short walk to the restaurant. 

“Like an appetizer?” Gaara asked, selecting a salt-and-vinegar chip when the bag was offered. 

“Oh, no.” Chouji chortled. “We’re definitely getting an appetizer.”

He’d also brought an extra scarf, which he draped over Gaara’s shoulders when the wind picked up. 

“Temari said you were skinny,” he announced, “and skinny people always get cold.”

Chouj was quick to smile and quicker to laugh. He guffawed at every one of Gaara’s wry, self-deprecating comments as if they were the funniest thing he’d ever heard, the sound bright and booming. His face was handsomely boyish, and he had broad shoulders and big hands, looks that would have made a younger Gaara blush uncontrollably. 

He seemed terribly kind and terribly strong, and when they came across a puddle on the sidewalk, he lifted Gaara over the mess without a moment’s hesitation. 

“Easy does it,” he said, patting Gaara firmly on the back once he’d been set down. “That puddle could’ve swallowed you up.”

And yet that gesture, which should have made Gaara’s stomach do flip-flops, only turned it to lead. When they reached for the chips at the same time and brushed fingers in the bag, Gaara felt nothing but the slightly greasy tinge on his fingertips. And when Chouji placed the best pieces of barbeque meat on Gaara’s plate with an expression of faint regret, all Gaara experienced was a slight prickle of annoyance that they were overcooked, and not the bloody rare he would have preferred. 

Lee, he thought, would have known better. Lee would have let Gaara eat his meat as raw as he liked while at the same time scolding him about the health risks of eating undercooked food. And then Gaara would have burnt some of Lee’s meat on purpose and pretended he was only doing it out of concern for Lee’s health, and then they would have started bickering, and Gaara would have accused Lee of just being sore over them not going to the curry shop for the hundredth time, and Lee would have laughed and protested and insisted Gaara pick the restaurant next time to prove it, and then Lee—

Gaara realized with a start that he hadn’t paid attention to any of the last several minutes of what Chouji had said. 

Because he’d been too busy imagining being on this date with Lee.

He glanced up across the table, where Chouji was gesturing encouragingly at the food Gaara had barely picked at. He had a butterfly embroidered on the breast pocket of his jacket, and through the haze of smoke coming off the grill between them, its wings seemed to flutter. 

_Sometimes when you get distracted by what’s bright and novel, you fail to notice the simple things that have been in front of you all along._

Gaara’s eyes went wide. 

He held his untouched plate out to Chouji.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Don’t let it go to waste.”

He didn’t fire off a text or try to leave then, though something in him wanted to. Instead he forced himself to sit there and watch Chouji polish off their meal. To really _try_ , just in case his revelation was misguided. 

And he did enjoy himself, truly. Chouji was a charming conversationalist, and he had stories about Shikamaru that Gaara suspected would make either excellent blackmail material or wedding speech fodder, depending on what course his and Temari’s relationship took. Gaara was genuinely having a good time.

But that was _all_ he was having.

Chouji must have sensed it too, because when he dropped Gaara off at his apartment door, he didn’t even attempt a hug. Instead, he stuck his hand out to shake. 

“That was fun!” he said, and seemed to mean it. “We should hang out again some other time.”

His handshake was firm. Safe. Utterly platonic. 

And Gaara was … oddly fine with that. They could, he thought, be great friends. Perhaps even more, in some other world, in some other life where there was space in Gaara’s heart for someone other than the person waiting for him on the opposite side of that door. 

“Thank you, Chouji,” Gaara said sincerely, though he doubted Chouji would truly understand why he was being thanked. 

“See you around!”

Gaara’s fingers groped numbly at the door handle, not from the cold. Golden light spilled down the little walkway and illuminated Chouji’s slow retreat. 

The warmth of the apartment grabbed him the moment he shut the door. Somewhere faintly, distantly, a latch clicked, and stocking feet padded up a carpeted hall. 

“I didn’t get an emergency text,” Lee murmured from the edge of the room. He had a strange look on his face, the expression somewhere between hopeful and hangdog. “It must have gone well.”

Lee was wearing his pajamas—which wasn’t unusual for this time of night; he’d always been early to bed—but he had his sweatshirt’s hood pulled up and his hands fisted in his sleeves. And the tone of his voice was … all wrong. Too quiet, too fearful. He hardly sounded like himself. 

“It was fine,” Gaara said cautiously, studying Lee’s face for a reaction. “He was a perfect gentleman.” 

“Oh.” Lee’s responding smile seemed forced. “That’s … wonderful.”

“It’s not going to work out.”

“Oh?” 

“I … think I realized something,” Gaara said with uncharacteristic hesitation. The soft leather panels of his jacket felt too flimsy to contain the nerves that were filling up his chest. 

“What was that?” Lee took a half-step forward. The sweatshirt’s hood fell from around his ears. Underneath, his hair was a damp tangle. 

He looked as handsome as Gaara had ever seen him look.

It was just that Gaara hadn’t been _looking_ before.

“That I was searching in all the wrong places, and what I wanted was here all along.” 

Lee’s features had gone all pinched. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“I have tickets to a carnival next weekend,” Gaara said. “Will you come with me?”

“Of course,” Lee replied. An awkward grin wobbled its way across his face. “I’m always happy to be your safety buddy!” 

“Not as my safety buddy,” Gaara cut him off. “As my date.”

Lee blinked once, twice. Then his grin broadened, strengthened, stretched across his face until it was real and true and ear-to-ear.

“I thought you’d never ask!”

* * *

There was a smudge of powdered sugar on Lee’s nose from his funnel cake. 

“I didn’t think you would enjoy this sort of thing,” Lee pressed close to Gaara’s ear to say. Below, the bustle and chatter of humans packed into tight spaces faded with every click of ascent, the ringing of prize bells and the shouts of fried food vendors whisked away by the evening’s crisp wind. The noise of the carnival fell quiet as they rose into the air, crammed into the tiny bucket seat of the ferris wheel. “You’ve always hated loud noises and crowds so much.” 

Gaara hadn’t really given the prospect much thought. Thus far, none of his dates had been any activity he particularly _enjoyed_. Some cynical part of him had thought that might even be the point of a first date—to put yourself in an unpleasant, awkward situation and see if you could manage to like the guy anyway. 

It was a notion that hadn’t been the least disabused when he’d messaged his scheduled date to cancel. 

The response he’d received, sent in jittery, nigh-instantaneous multiple messages, had been:

_is it because you found out that 4 people die per year on roller coasters_  
_and even though that doesn’t seem very common_  
_it still kind of seems like a lot more people than it should be_  
_and also i have terrible luck_  
_and i haven’t been eating the best recently_  
_so what if i mess up the balance of the roller coaster car_  
_and tip us out over the fairgrounds_  
_and we splatter to our deaths_  
_because if it is then i get it_

Gaara definitely _hadn’t_ been thinking that when he’d sent the message. Though as he’d deleted Omoi from his contacts, he’d obviously found himself starting to stew over that fresh anxiety.

“It’s tolerable with you.” Gaara raised his voice as loud as his breathlessness would allow. “As long as we don’t go on the roller coaster.”

He glanced down over the edge of the car and found the ground quite far beneath him. The diminishing specks of bodies milled beneath them like strewn confetti, their motions as random and purposeful as ants in a farm. The smell of charred meat and spilled booze filled the air.

He tucked his nose into Lee’s side. The arm around his shoulders squeezed. 

“I would still like you to actually enjoy yourself,” Lee said, stifling a laugh at Gaara’s noise of disgruntlement and tugging him closer. “But we can certainly avoid the roller coasters if you wish.”

“I wish.” Gaara’s voice was muffled by Lee’s fleece jacket.

It was not the first time they had sat like this. 

How many evenings had Gaara passed on the couch with Lee’s arm along the back of the couch behind him, trading off nights between Lee’s favorite action romances and Gaara’s favorite nature documentaries? How many times had Lee leaned over Gaara’s shoulder in the kitchen to make sure he wasn’t burning the apartment down, his hand clasped around Gaara’s upper arm for stability? How many rainy evenings had Lee picked Gaara up from campus so he didn’t have to walk or take the train, draping his too-big jacket over Gaara’s head and shoulders like a makeshift umbrella to keep him dry? And how was it that Gaara had never noticed the culmination of these tiny gestures, had never attributed it to something more than being very close friends, roommates who had lived together so long they had grown symbiotic?

It was not the first time they had sat in this exact position, and yet Gaara felt every nerve ending as if he had just been born into this moment. 

And the best part was, Gaara realized with poorly concealed awe, he felt not the slightest bit of anxiety over it. Here he was, suspended dozens of feet in the air, and yet he’d never felt more _comfortable_. 

Though perhaps it was the fear of plummeting to his doom sublimating any first date jitters.

“Speaking of wishes,” Lee said, “what do you think you _would_ enjoy? There aren’t many rides slower than the ferris wheel. Maybe the games?”

Lee’s hand had taken up a steady stroking now: up over the cap of Gaara’s shoulder and back down to his elbow, squeezing reassurance at the trough of each descent. His hand was broad and warm from the friction, even through the layers of his glove and Gaara’s coat. 

“Maybe,” Gaara replied, more focused on the touch than Lee’s words. “You know I’m not exactly athletic.” 

“With a little effort you could be!” Lee flexed his free arm, and Gaara tried his best not to ogle him too obviously. “You just need some motivation. When I was a kid, I always used to dream about winning those high striker games. You know the ones where you hit it with a mallet and ring the bell?”

“Those are rigged,” Gaara said. 

“That’s what my stepdad always says,” Lee agreed. “Even Papa can’t beat them. Maybe that’s a bad example, then …” He gave a little sigh, settling back into the seat and bringing Gaara with him. “Oh well, it wasn’t exactly a noble ideal. It was always more about wanting to impress everyone than anything.”

“You’re already impressive,” Gaara retorted, ablaze with a vague sense of offense. “You don’t need a carnival game to prove that.”

“If you say so.” Lee chuckled, not sounding especially convinced. “But that’s supposed to be the dream, isn’t it? Winning the giant bear and then giving it to your date?”

The so-called _dream_ must have been something out of Lee’s romcoms, because Gaara had no idea what he was talking about. Nor did he particularly want to consider the idea of Lee winning carnival prizes for some other date who wasn’t Gaara. Jealousy, in all its novelty, curled hot in his stomach. 

“If you want a giant bear, you could just buy one,” he said, crossing his arms across his chest. “It’d probably be cheaper than game tickets anyway.”

“That’s not really the point.” A curious little twist formed in Lee’s expression. “It’s about the grand romantic gesture. It wouldn’t be the same if I bought it for myself.” 

“I see,” Gaara said, though he was mostly lying. 

The ferris wheel climbed a few precarious notches higher. 

“You know,” Lee said, contemplative, “Tenten always likes to try and rock the buckets.”

“Lee,” Gaara snapped, turning his chin up to glower. It was not, he had to admit, the most intimidating of positions, tucked as he was into Lee’s underarm. He had not looked up statistics on how many people perished per year on ferris wheels, but he suspected rocking the seat would increase the odds substantially. “There was a sign that very specifically said—”

Lee burst into peals of laughter, longer and louder than the music bursting tinny from the ground, than the shrieks of fairgoers on the nearby rides, than the creak of the wheel’s dubious metal structure.

“I won’t!” he protested, tears gathering at the corner of his eyes. “I wouldn’t! But you should have seen your face.”

“You’re not as funny as you think you are,” Gaara groused, fighting back the beginnings of a smile and hiding it in Lee’s fleece once more. 

“No, but I’m exactly as funny as you think I am.” Lee tugged Gaara yet closer with another shimmering laugh. 

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

Beneath them, the wheel clicked and stuttered. With a great heaving, metallic sigh, it came to a stop.

“Oh,” Lee said, his voice suddenly quiet.

“What?”

“We’re at the top.”

“Oh,” Gaara echoed. 

He knew what came next. And, extracting himself from the warmth of Lee’s embrace to look up into his eyes, he could see that Lee knew, too. 

He had never gotten to this point on a date before. 

The first kiss. 

The air felt suddenly very thin in his lungs, and he wondered idly if it was altitude or nerves or both. 

Carnival lights caught in Lee’s dark hair, in his dark eyes, and turned them into a kaleidoscope of color. The sugar on his nose glittered between his freckles like a dusting of fresh snow. This close, Gaara could smell the cologne Lee only wore for special occasions—something forestral and spicy and utterly old fashioned—and the grease of fried food on his breath. 

He smiled, and everything about him was shining. 

“Um, Gaara,” he half-whispered. “Can I—”

Gaara grabbed him by the ears, pulled him down, and kissed him.

He mostly caught Lee’s teeth, mid-smile as they were, and when Lee went to reposition he bumped his nose against Gaara’s, hard. 

Lee’s natural athleticism didn’t seem to be doing him any favors in the coordination department, and Gaara wondered with a warm furl of smugness in his belly if this wasn’t Lee’s first kiss, too. He’d have to ask him later. Their conversations over the years had necessarily avoided topics of romance--due to Lee’s embarrassment, which Gaara now realized might have been his own nascent attraction. 

But that was fine--any amount of clumsy fumbling was _just fine_ \--because they had the whole descent of the ferris wheel to practice. And because Gaara finally had _precisely_ what he hadn’t known he’d been looking for, right here in his clutches, and it was going to take more than a few awkward, wet mouth noises to make him give it up. 

He pushed Lee up against the cold metal and grinned fiercely at the startled little _Oof!_ Lee gave in response, thrilled victorious at the way Lee’s strong hands steadied his hips. 

By the time they were nearing solid ground, Gaara would venture to assert that they had actually gotten quite good at the whole thing. 

“Wow,” Lee murmured, idly wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve and only managing to smear the powdered sugar further across his face. 

“Yeah.” Gaara struggled to catch his breath, envious that Lee hardly seemed winded at all. He was blushing, though, color high on his cheeks and bright red like a candy apple.

Just down the midway, a man in a brightly colored vest and tophat caught Gaara’s eye. He straightened up and grabbed Lee’s sleeve, pulling him past the judgmental gaze of the ride operator and down the rickety wooden steps onto bare, litter-strewn earth. 

“Come on,” he said, “I’m going to win you the biggest stuffed animal there is.” 

“I thought you said you were no good at games!” Lee objected, giggling and staggering to gain his feet in the wake of Gaara’s determined march onward.

“I’m not,” Gaara agreed, “but that guess-my-age guy will never know what hit him.”


End file.
